Abortions in Texas Fell By Half After Ban, Study Finds: Displaced patients strain capacity in neighboring states – News

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Protesters gathered at the Texas State Capitol against Senate Bill 8 on October 2 (Photo by John Anderson)

The number of abortions performed in Texas fell in half – the largest documented decline in the procedure in recent Texas history – following the passage of the state’s extreme ban on abortion, Senate Act 8, according to a new study by the Texas Policy Evaluation Project (TxPEP). .

The nearly 50% decrease in patients receiving abortions after the law went into effect far exceeds the 13% decrease in abortions under House Law 2 of 2013 – which eventually closed half of the state’s clinics before being passed by the Supreme Court of Justice U.S. was crushed – and the 38% decline after the 2020 state executive order banning abortion during the COVID-19 pandemic, which lasted about a month.

The numbers compare rates from 2020 to 2021 and are based on monthly data from 19 abortion clinics, which provide about 93% of all abortions reported to the state. The first research made available to the Austin Chronicle is the first substantial evidence of the devastating effects of the law since it came into effect on September 1st.

For more than 50 days, SB 8 has prohibited abortions as soon as embryonic heart activity can be detected, usually about six weeks, with no exception in the case of rape or incest. With at least 80% of women not realizing early that they are pregnant or seeking treatment before the sixth week of pregnancy, the law in the second largest state in the United States amounts to an almost complete ban. Draconian law devastated supplies in Texas, largely turning the state into a post-Roe v. World. Wade transforms, in which abortion-seeking patients must find the means to leave the state for treatment or to end unplanned pregnancies against their will.

The study also found that waiting times for appointments were longer in neighboring states like Arkansas, Louisiana, New Mexico, and Oklahoma, suggesting that the influx of displaced Texas patients is weighing on the capacity of the few surrounding clinics. The neighboring states, TxPEP, house about half of the abortion facilities like Texas combined and provide about a third the number of abortions annually compared to Texas. Waiting times of more than two weeks were “common” in many places. For example, delays in abortion appointments in Oklahoma have increased from up to 12 days to up to 23 days. And access to health care outside of Texas could become more difficult if restrictions come into effect in those states.

As financial donations to reproductive health clinics and abortion funds wear off over time, abortion care in Texas is likely to continue to decline as many abortion-seeking patients have low incomes and may not be able to pay the out-of-pocket expenses, researchers note . And with the decline in customer volume in clinics, facilities may end up being forced to cut staff or reduce clinic times, potentially resulting in appointment delays and out of reach of care within the six-week window.

“As services continue to be restricted in Texas and nearby states, more people will be unable to receive facility-based abortion care. Those hardest hit include minors unable to involve a parent in their care, immigrant families fearful of encountering police and border guards, parents with limited childcare options, and people living in or under poverty, including many blacks, Latinx, and others Colored “, write TxPEP researchers.

“Some may try to terminate their pregnancies on their own by buying drugs online, getting drugs over the counter in Mexico, or resorting to ineffective or harmful measures,” they write. “Others will be forced to continue their pregnancies, with negative health and economic consequences for women and their children.”

In legal briefs filed this month, Texas abortion providers painfully describe the many vulnerable and desperate patients they have been turned away since the law went into effect, including sexual abuse survivors; undocumented patients; a single mother; Women suffering from chronic illnesses and mental illnesses; and patients aged 13 and 12 years.

The law exacerbates the already burdensome reproductive health care landscape in Texas. Over a decade, Republican lawmakers have enacted a number of onerous restrictions that have created a maze of barriers for abortion-seeking patients, including a 24-hour pre-abortion sonogram; Bans on private and public insurance; Limits of judicial circumvention; and a 20-week ban. Long before SB 8, Texas was home to most of the abortion deserts in the United States, making supplies out of reach for many. Because clinics are so geographically concentrated in Texas, 44% of women lived in a county with no abortion facility, which forced them to drive an average of 50 miles to the nearest clinic well before SB 8 went into effect.

On Monday, November 1st, the US Supreme Court will argue orally against the law in two cases. Rather than scrutinizing the law’s constitutionality, the judges will review the law’s unusual vigilante enforcement procedures – which allow individuals to sue anyone who supports or promotes abortion and collect a $ 10,000 bounty – and whether the U.S. government is empowered to block the law.

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